Curmudgeon News - September 2000

This month's items include:

• Intensive Exercise is Bad For You
• Drunken Cyclist Gaoled
• Hours Reform On Hold
• Fat Plays Vital Role
• Pub-Free Bastion Falls At Last
• Car-Free Day Has Little Impact
• Police Launch Recruitment Drive
• Britain Paralysed by Fuel Protest
• Council Kicks Out Toll Plans
• Chocolate is Good for the Heart

Complete News Index

• Intensive Exercise is Bad For You

  Researchers have warned that too much intensive physical exercise can damage the lungs. Experts at the World Congress on Lung Diseases in Florence, Italy, said athletes who take part in high endurance sports such as marathon running, swimming and cross-country skiing may run the risk of developing breathing difficulties. Research found that marathon runners were three times more likely to experience asthma than ordinary people, while a survey of US competitors in the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta found that 16% of athletes and 50% of cyclists reported suffering from asthma. Slowly but surely, the truth is coming out, that intensive exercise is actively harmful, and the human body was quite simply not designed for it. I seem to recall that Jim Fixx, regarded as the guru of jogging, died from a heart attack during a run in his early 50s. To my mind, the best form of exercise is walking to and from the pub. And if you have to play sport, what’s wrong with cricket?

• Drunken Cyclist Gaoled

  A drunken cyclist who wrecked the life of a student nurse when he knocked her down in a pedestrian zone was gaoled for nine months at Manchester Crown Court. Salford resident Darren Ingham hit Jane Nicholls, who had sat her nursing finals five days earlier, while he was riding on the pavement after consuming a litre of fortified wine. Miss Nicholls’ memory and speech were affected and, because of damaged nerves, she can neither drive nor cycle. Since the accident, her bursary had been stopped and she had been unable to return to her training. It’s generally recognised that drunken driving is dangerous, but this underlines that drunken cycling can be too (although obviously not remotely to the same degree). So why do some CAMRA branches still promote bike crawls which may involve visiting six or more pubs and very likely consuming a pint in each? Have they never read Rule 53 of the Highway Code? Take a look at my article on the subject from October 1999.

• Hours Reform On Hold

  Government plans to reform licensing laws in England and Wales have been put on hold following a fragmented response from brewers and publicans, and opposition from central London boroughs. Home Office Minister Mike O'Brien reaffirmed government commitment to reform, but only "when parliamentary time permits", which could well be after the next election. While there is a broad consensus for more relaxed hours, the government proposals were deeply flawed, as I pointed out last month. They failed to lay down a basic framework within which licensees could operate, and they would have transferred control of licensing from magistrates to local authorities, inevitably leading to inconsistent, politically motivated decisions which might even have meant pubs having to close earlier than at present. Clearly more time is needed to reflect on the plans and arrive at a way forward on which all interested parties can agree.

• Fat Plays Vital Role

  Scientific researchers have found that fat plays an important role in protecting bones and organs, regulating hormones and the immune system and managing women's reproductive systems. Studies have revealed fat produces an important hormone called leptin that provides the brain with information about the body's energy levels. Steve O'Rahilly, from the University of Cambridge, said the discovery of leptin "made fat much cleverer than it was thought to be before," while another researcher said: "Fat is an organ. You should probably think of it as a little bit like the liver." This reinforces the story I reported a few months ago that comfortably-built people are much more content than skinny ones. And it gives a whole new connotation to the phrase "the size of your organ"!

• Pub-Free Bastion Falls At Last

  After a three-year rearguard action, a century of public abstemiousness was brought to an end in the select Essex resort of Frinton when the first pub in the town opened. Roy Caddick, secretary of the Residents’ Association, said: "It’s the worst day Frinton has suffered since a few Focke-Wulfs beat up the town in 1944." The Lock & Barrel, leased by Kent brewers Shepherd Neame, has bowed to local sensitivities by imposing a strict dress code and banning pool, darts, loud music and drinking from the bottle. With the increasing trend for pubs to descend into the gutter of yobboes’ posing bars, it’s good to see that Frinton has got itself what sounds like a proper, traditional one, which will hopefully be appreciated by the town’s elderly and genteel residents. And I wish more pubs would outlaw swigging from bottles!

• Car-Free Day Has Little Impact

  Attempts to persuade British motorists to leave their cars at home appear to have failed, with European Car-Free Day on Friday 22 September having little impact on traffic levels. Congestion was reported to be as bad as ever, and at some locally-organised publicity events turnout was lower than expected. In Stoke-on-Trent, one of the handful of local authorities taking part, just one road was closed, and there were traffic jams on the A500 ring road as normal. The local council expected 70 staff to travel into work by alternative means, but only 20 took part. Overall, the AA's Rebecca Rees said that traffic levels in the UK were the same as they would be on any Friday morning. I work in Stoke, and can confirm that the usual morning tailback on the "D-road" was as bad as ever. It seems that Britain got a vision of car-free life the week before during the fuel protest, and didn't like what it saw.

• Police Launch Recruitment Drive

  A £7m recruitment drive designed to attract 9,000 new police officers in England and Wales is being launched by the Home Secretary, Jack Straw. The campaign will aim to cut the fall in police numbers with a series of TV adverts based on the Army's dramatic "What are you thinking?" campaign. Even with 9,000 new recruits, officials concede that the number of officers leaving the force could mean there will be fewer on the beat in three years' time. But are they really going to be on the beat, or sitting in comfortable cars and offices munching Big Macs? Obviously remuneration levels are a problem, but police work is still well-paid and secure compared with many other careers. Surely the key factors affecting recruitment are the way grassroots police work is increasingly hamstrung by political correctness, and that the police have forfeited a great deal of respect amongst law-abiding, respectable people by their constant harassment of motorists for trivial or non-existent offences.

• Britain Paralysed by Fuel Protest

  Following the example of farmers and hauliers in France, demonstrations were mounted outside fuel depots in Britain, bringing deliveries to a halt. Within three days, the country had been brought to a standstill. The protestors then called off their action before it started to have an impact on essential services, but gave the government a 60-day deadline to take action on fuel tax. Everything that can be said about this probably has been, so I'll simply make the point that no tax is defensible if it causes genuine hardship to some individuals - a painful lesson that Margaret Thatcher learned over the Poll Tax. And it underlines the fact that governments must listen to public opinion, even if they don't like what it's telling them - the protest would never have had the effect it did without near-universal public sympathy.

• Council Kicks Out Toll Plans

  Birmingham City Council has abandoned proposals to charge companies hundreds of pounds a year for each parking space, as it says this would be too complicated. There is also confusion on who would be exempt, with health workers, disabled drivers and teachers worried that they may have to pay. The Government was hoping the charges, plus city centre tolls, would raise £2.7 billion for transport projects. I can't see any local council, at least outside central London, ever introducing workplace parking charges because of all the arguments over anomalies and exemptions. The idea may have some merit in crowded city centres, but spread over the whole of a large area such as Birmingham or Manchester it would be inherently unfair and penalise many people who had no realistic alternative to travelling to work by car.

• Chocolate is Good for the Heart

  In common with many enjoyable products, chocolate has long had a poor reputation, but it now appears that the tide has turned. A study presented to the congress of the European Society of Cardiology in Amsterdam indicated that chemicals in chocolate may replicate the effects of red wine and whisky in preventing blood clots and helping blood vessels to relax, thus reducing the risk of a heart attack. This kind of news does make you wonder to what extent many of the warnings about things you enjoy are motivated as much by Puritanism as a genuine concern for people's health.

Complete News Index

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